When you're gone
by Capitano
Summary: Allan's back but an old enemy, coming from the past, intend to use the one the hunter loves to destroy him and the League. AllanTommy fatherson relationship... and some of Allan vs. Tom scenes.
1. Rise

Hello everybody! This is my first fan fiction. I suppose that, as my initial attempt, it wouldn't be so perfect and I'm really sorry for my very bad english: it isn't my native language. I appeal to your clemency! (PS: Every reference to news, people or stories of other writers is completely chance and involuntary). I hope you like it!!

**WHEN YOU'RE GONE**

**Chapter 1: Rise**

The swadows were everywhere.

Although he tried to open his eyes, he couldn't distinguish nothing more than the darkness. He couldn't breathe. It was like he was weighted down by something heavy and shapeless, like was...

_Buried alive!_

The panic began to pincer his heart. Return to life only to die in the nexts instans! What a cruel fate could've been possibe!

He tried hard to calm himself. Outside the grave, he heard the roar of the storm upset the sky and the rumble of the thunder smash the earth. From the bowels of the ground an unknown and powerful force grew like a jolt of earthquake than pressed him to free himself from his prison.

He attempted to fight with all of his strenghtbut he was trapped from every side. He wasn't able to move. The earth held him back and nailed him down implacably. It was impossible for him to go out of this horrible nightmare.

He struggled with more vigour and tenacity. It was necessary to used up the whole reserve of air. He must come out from there or he would die during the attempt. He would never surrender without figthing. In this moment he felt a fondness of the like that he never perceived before. He won't die another time. Not now.

He knew that the oxigen was exhausting every second that passed but he continue tossing and turning and wriggling with growing fury as long as he felt his limb move. Picking up the last reserves of his vital energy, in a desperate act with his right hand he managed to punch the shroud that wrapped up his body and pierce the last layer of earth that separtated him from the living land. As soos as his hand was out, quikly another one, from the other side, grasped it and began to pull him out of the grave with force.

In his heart he felt again the hope reborn, intense and benign like a fresh light breeze relieve the burning anguish that tormented his spirit. A torrent of new energy and vitality that got bigger at every pieces of his body snatched from the erath.

After interminable and anguished moments the top of his bust was drew out of the grave and at last, after so much time, he return to breathe another time.

Allan Quatermain was alaive. Again.

It's not much long, I konw, but if this story will have success I promise to the next chapters longer than this. I ask you, please, to tell me what do you think about it and what you like it happen. I would have no problem to satisfy you. Send me also some criticism so I can do my best with my work. Otherwise, if it will not have success this will be the first and the last chapter I've ever write. Its future is in your hands!!


	2. Dura Lex, sed Lex

Hello all! Thank you really much for your lovely reviews. Thanks a lot to Sawyer Fan, mistX and DocRock06. Also in this occasion, please forgive me for my mistakes. I hope you like this chapter as well.

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**WHEN YOU'RE GONE**

**Chap****ter 2: Dura Lex, sed Lex**

The sun plunged in the vastness of the ocean. His colours of fire, so splendids and louds, bights and blazing, impregnated completely the landscape with their blinding but hypnotizing energy. A surreal peace dominated those waters. The line of the horizon faded away into the infinity, a space where there wasn't any border between earth and sky. The rays of the sun yielded the serenity and the stillness of that smooth and shining surface. They ran across the air with teir impalpable and elusive power. It seemed that an invisible hand would stroke scarcely the waters.

From the boundary of the sea, like a fine blade that rip open a precious cloth with delicacy and elegance, a fast submarine advanced on the ocean, so impressive and still so graceful and pleasing. The water spurts bumping against his sides, crystalized in countless pearls of light. The brilliance of his wall was dazzling that it seemed it absorbed the whole bright energy of hte panorama. It was like there was another sun on the sea, a celestial ray, white and fine, that ran like a ghost through the calmness of the sunset. The landscape remained motionless at the passing of the Nautilus, the sword of the oceans.

On the deck of the most famous ruler of the seas a lonely figure stood out against the sky, a young man who was probably 19 years old, with deep green eyes and a couple of pistols half-hidden by the coat. He looked at the sunset with a melancholy expression on his face and keeping in a hand a letter, creased and much soaked because of the tears. On that paper there were the most terrible and cruel sentences that have never been written. It was the end of his hopes for a different life, with a new family.

_Resination refused_

It was like those words were again in front of his eyes, while the memories of the last adventure were reflected in the water. During that period he had bumped into the most beautiful things in the world: a father figure. At the beginning he had seen him like a very important "colleague" but, with the passing of time and the succession of the events, he had changed that point of view. Tom knew how painfull the death of Harry was for Allan Quatermain and then he didn't dare to suppose absolutely to be considered like a son, although he wanted it ardently. Tom hadn't never had a father and, since he was a child, this condition thoubled his spirit deeply but he didn't show his inner pain to anyone. As much as he had tried, there was always the ghost of Harry between them. But at last, when Allan had sacrificed his life to save Sawyer's, the boy had seen how much he was important for the great hunter... and what he had lost.

_May this new century be yours, SON, as the old one was mine._

He had lost a father. The only father he've never had.

And now Tom suffered greatly for having not realized his mistake before. He would prefer 1000 times to die instead of him. Why did he do that? He must have not done it!

_What I've ever done to deserve that gift?_

He would sacrifice his own life for another occasion. He would give everything to get him back. Everything.

A lonely tear went down along the cheek. Now he had only the League but that people without heart was going to snatch him from his family. In the end his worl had collapsed, his hopes had been destroied and his dreams had been annihilated. The light of those past days was gone.

He was still torturing himself with those thoughts when he heard opening the heavy metallic door behind him. Quickly he wiped away his tears and hid the letter to not show it so wet. No one of the League must see him in that bad state. He didn't allow them to suffer for him. He returned to the previous posture just in time. A silent person, with dark clothes and covered by a thin voile of sadness and melancholy, crossed the threshold. He looked like a doctor.

" Tom, are you ok? "

" Yes, thanks Jekill. I'm just thinking. "

The young answered without turning back and still keeping the eyes on the horizon. The doctor came nearer.

" It's a shame that you have to go. All of us will miss you. "

The spy didn't say anything. The emotion, so vivid and violent nailed his tongue. Jekill felt his heart squeezing at this reaction.

" _You don't help him in this way_. " – Hyde said inside his mind.

" _Tell him to do not give a damn to those old mummies and their pathetic ultimatum_. _The boy is with us now!_ _Tell them to try to take him: I'll beat the daylight out of them in five seconds! No one of those bloody clowns of his superiors will fall out with us! We're heroes. The life and the safety of the whole world depends on the League. It wouldn't be better for them to get us angry!!! "_

" This is egoism! " – Jekill protested

" _No. It's common sense! Do you find it a fair reward for what the boy has suffered? He has risked his life like all of us, he has shared our own danger. And for what? For being separated from wha he begun to call a home? Do you call that "justice"? "_

Jekill didn't murmur. He sighted. For some reason Hyde was right. Tom had saved the world but someone had forgot this detail. The lad was a part of the team, a part of the family. He was one of them in all the aspects.

He started again to talk to the young.

" Are you really sure to return ? "

The american turned towards him. He was resigned to his destiny.

" I have no choice. When I accepted that work I took responsability for it. I have an obligation toward them, "

_Maybe it's for the best__. Maybe I don't deserve the League_

Hyde returned to attack.

" _Nom du diable! The boy's digging his grave with his own hands!! Do you Know what they will do to the boy as soon as he arrive? They will send him __in__ every kind of mission, every time more dangerous and more impossibles until he'll be killed! It's a suicide! "_

" Shut up, Edward! Now you're exaggerating! Tom is a smart kid. He knows what he's doing! And then... I'm not sure that Tom's superiors are so terrible! Of course they don't want anything of bad for him."

Hyde laughted

" _You'r__e really funny! And so, tell me, what do you think Allan would have done in that case? He would have left him go? "_

Jekill didn't answer. Every member of the League knew what happened between Quatermain and the american. They had become a little part of a beautiful big family. They had been like father and son. No, the great hunter wouldn't had left the boy go, for nothing in the world, but...

" I think Allan would have respected his decision!"

And with those words the doctor closed his speech. In the meantime, the lad had resumed peering at the sunset.

" Is there something I can do for you? " . He asked quietly.

" No, just..." Tom sighted " It doesn't matter. "

Jekill set out to the door but the voice of the young stopped him.

" Jekill? "

The doctor turned.

" Thanks "

Another chapter left. As I said before I'll be happy (really happy) to receive your comment, advices and ideas. Thank you so much!!!


	3. Goodbye to Africa

Thank so much Sawyer Fan, DocRock06 and mistX. You're wonderful! I'm really, really, really if I continue to make mistakes and, please, forgive me for my limitated use of English. Good reading!

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**WHEN YOU'RE GONE**

**Chapter 3 : Goodbye to Africa**

The sky was still very cloudy but on the horizon it began to clear up, while the roar of the thunder was getting fleeber and more distant.

The old hunter stayied gasping near his own grave. All his limbs were aching and trembling. He could hardly stand up and his eyesight was darkened. Tottering a bit, he leaned against the witch doctor beside him. A sense of queasiness overtook him and it made him giddy.

Returning from the Other Side wasn't a beautiful sensation!

The old medicine man took him to a wooden cross of the little cemetery and he helped him to sit down against the wall.

" Stay here. Rest. "

Bit by bit Allan began to feel better but he still had the ideas confused. The breathing became more regular and the pain grew weak, untill it nearly disappeared. His head also stopped buzzing and the images recovered more clear. Looking around, he noticed something, black and shiny, near his grave, half – buried by the soil just turned up. Getting upwith a bit of difficulty, while the native stood still beside the cross. He went up to the object. It was a barrel of a rifle. Quatermain took it from the ground. It looked familiar, very familiar. He was still trying hard to remember where he'd already seen it when, those which before were rare and fleeting drops of memories, suddenly they turned into an authentic fall, a violent current of cold wather that pierced his lung and frozed his blood. Now he remembered everything, every single aspect and detail. He remembered also that gun a his proprietor.

_Thomas!_

His heart became wider at the memory of that boy he'd known and the last time he'd seen him. He'd got M! Shooting had been the only thing Allan had taught him but Tom had learnt it perfectly. He was so pround of him. He wasn't a bad teacher anymore. He'd trained him very well. The boy was really ready for the action.

_In spite of what Moriarty__ said!_

He had finished making mistakes, also like a father. A father! Being a father again! It was a strange but pleasant sensation, like an anchient perfume almost forgotten, like a gentle and penetrating warmth which melted the ice, the snow of a winter that he had inside him since too much time.

Quatermain smiled to himself. He would teach him every his other tricks, everything he Knew, as fathers do to their sons. It would be his legacy, the inheritance of an hero. But he'd become aware of having given already to that boy something which went beyond those things. He gave him his life. He'd never hoped to offer him anything more precious than his knowledge. Now he knew he was wrong.

Nothing was more priceless than the life.

With that action Allan had remedied every mistake in all his life. He'd remedied his son's death saving another one.

Then he'd run into the League. Although at the beginning in the group there were diffidence and some conflicts, at the end of the adventure they had found themself united against the common enemy, side by side, to save innocent lifes. They had worked in team, helping each other and not leaving behind anyone. They had do the most they could and they'd won. Despite all the difficulties, the treacheries and the obstacles, they had succeed to do something of good, together.

The old hunter was interrupted from his reflections, taking him back to the reality, by the voice of the native.

" They're already gone. "

Quatermain stared at him. His face was expressionless and his eyes were fixed on him.

" When ? "

" As soon as they buried you. "

Allan felt the anguish rise inside his heart, a sudden and uncontrollable hurry of going, reaching his team, seeing them.

" How much time is passed? "

" Neither a day. " answered cordially the old man " Africa keeps always his promises. "

The white hunter lowered sadly his head, smiling scarcelly.

" Thanks. "

Though ha was grateful for that marvellous gift, Allan was disheartened and a bit disappointed. He knew very well he was took back to this world only to continue helping Africa and so it wouldn't in her plans to allow him to go around all the continents to scatter troubles with a bizarre band of odd and eccentric people. With that gesture she wanted give him new tasks, new responsability and new hopes. He couldn't betray her trust in him! She brought him again to the life and so his life belonged to Africa.

_What a paradoxical sotuatio__n! I would have the opportunity to go and see them... but I can't!_

Although half – heartedly, Quatermain decided to stay there to go on with protecting the black continent, his home, as she expected it of him.

_But it i__s a shame, a real shame!_

In the meantime the witch doctor was staring at the hunter. He knew the troumbling in Allan's soul, that cold light which came to the surface of his eyes. His way of gazing at the gun, like he was on the point of leaving it forever, like it was the last time he would see it.

He interrupted the silence.

" You're not compelled to remain. "

Allan looked at him, incredulous and astonished. Maybe he had not understood very well.

" What ? "

" You can go. " repeted smiling the old man.

He seemed to be honest but the hunter was still suspicious.

" You're not reading my thoughts, aren't you? "

" Absolutly not! " he answered calm " but it's not necessary to be a prophetic to decipher that gaze, to know what you're thinking about. "

Quatermain lowered his eyes on the rifle.

_Caught!_

A bit embarassed, he tried to explain. " It's only that... "

" You miss him. " finished the other man.

He gaze at him and nodded.

" He anso miss you very much. He's been the last person leaving your grave. "

Allan felt discomfort. The last thing he'd seen before dying had been the young's expression of dismay, anguish and profound sadness.

_I shouldn't be here! That boy needs me! He would think I'm dead. He would suffer for this and I couldn't be able to nothing to mitigare his grief!_

Interpreting his silence as a confirmation of his theory, the witch doctor went on to talk.

" You died for him, did you? "

The old hunter was pierced to the quick. He didn't knew what to answer.

He saw the distance, beyond the horizon. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine, while that moment, that dreadful nightmare lived in his mind again: Moriarty's diabolic sneer, Tom with a knife pointed at his throat, so near to the death and the fear and the tension of having only a few seconds to save the person ho loved the most in the whole world...

Quatermain put a hand on his eyes. God! He'd almost losed him! If it happened he wouldn't never forgive himself!

But he returned to admire the light of the sun, his positive and comforting power.

_He wasn't dead! I'd succeeded to protect him! I'd __done it!_

" Why don't you retun to him? "

" Because I have a dept of gratitude to Africa! "

Allan began to get furious. Why on earth he persisted in tormenting him? Why he had to insist in touching on a sore point?

_You bloody know better than me why I can't leave!_

The native sighed, shaking his head, as he'd listened those words.

" I haven't revived you for that motive. "

The white hunter opened his eyes wide.

_Ah no?_

" I've done it so that you might continue to do what you were doing while you're protecting my village, rescuing innocents and saving women and children. If you remain here, you couldn't carry out adequately your mission because you would be distant from people who needs your help. "

And coming nearer, he put both his hands on Allan's shoulder and, smiling, he concluded.

" The only thing I ask you to do is just hte same you desire the most: taking care of who you love and letting not nobody to take it from you. "

Quatermain couldn't believe it! He was free to go!

" I ... don't know how to thank you. "

" You know it. " the witch doctor said, patting his shoulders " You know it. "

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A rider and his horse ran across the silent savannah of the black continent.

Allan breathed deeply the air which was investing him, the air of the freedom and the adventure. It was intoxicating while his heart throbed headlong of joy and the spirit glided on the wings of the wind. It was like he was returned young, like he still had the vitality of his best years, an inextinguishable fire in his veins.

He was more alive than he'd never been before!

Now he could realize all his dreams. It wasn't too much late to change his life, to write a new final chapter for his history, or rather, to star a new book. Running against the wind, Quatermain kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, while with his mind he flew across torrid deserts, green hills and endless seas, beyond Countries and Nations, always more distant as far as the Nautilus, as far as the League, as far as his boy.

But unexpectedly, the distant trumpeting of an elephant broke the spell. It seemed like it was calling him. He stopped the horse to listen better but that call faded. He looked around to localize any traces of the pachyderm but fe fuonded out to be alone in the immense african plain, soaked by the fashinating light of the sun, which was disappearing beyond the border of the earth in a silent struggle against the advancing darkness, on the background of a bright red sky, so flashing and enchanting, while the shadows widened untill they were losted in the eternal nothing of the night.

How much were wonderful the sunsets in Africa! That triumph of blazing colours where drowned his thoughts and his worries and where his warlike spirit founded peace and tranquillity.

And he felt the bite of the yearning. Heaven knows how much time would pass before he could see again his country, his home land. Admiring again its vast spaces and going through its boundless prairies again and its landscapes so full of snares and charm. The black continent had been his hom for many years. He would miss that star – studden sky and the hunting parties with his friends and companions of adventures.

Neverthelless it seemed that Africa was smiling at him. Her spirit was with him and it would be always.

_Africa will belong always to my heart._

And he resumed running.

If in my work there are some elements which refer or belong to stories of other writers, believe me, they are completely chances. I don't want to copy the story of anyone. My sources of inspiration are absolutly different!


	4. Vindicta

Hello everybody! Many thanks to Sawyer Fan, DocRock, mistX, MzPink and Kyrika!! You're absolutely wonderful!! I hope you like this chapter as well!!!

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**WHEN YOU'RE GONE**

**Charter 4: Vindicta **

The rain was beatine incessant against the windows of a dark room in an old builbing which rose impressive on the whole city, on the background of a grey sky. Although the storm went on with its fury, as it tried hard in all the way to come in through the window richly framed by a purple curtains, in the room there were only peace and silence. It was very comfortable, wrapped up by a mild warmth and imperceptibly lit by a faint light of a lamp on a writing – desk, which was reflected on anchient valuable forniture. Near the spring of light, a man was playing cards alone, while the shadows concealed his identity.

He heard knocking at the door.

" Yes? " he asked without taking away his eyes from the cards.

An old and short butle appeared on the doorway.

"Excuse me, sir. There is Mr. Henry Roberts downstairs. He ask to talk to you. He sais it's urgent. "

" Let him pass. "

As soon as the mas was gone, he gave his game up and, reached a small piece of forniture elegantly decorated, situated near the window on which there were some excellent liquors, he filled up two glasses of gin.

He was still filling the second glass when the announced gest burst into the room. He was soaked to the skin and his hair were wet through.

" John! You must hear this! I've a burning question in my hands. " he grasped.

The host cast a quick glance at him, despising his condition, but then, with imperturbable expression, he gave him the glass, asking:

" Have you fallen by any chance into the river? "

_He seems he's arrived swimming!_

The other man, ignoring the witty remark and gulping down the gin, continued.

" I'm not joking! This is pure dynamite! I advise you to sit down and hold on to the chair. "

" So? " he asked, sitting tranquilly.

" Allan Quatermains back! "

His interlocutor stared at him incredulous, like his poor mad friend had just said he'd seen a martian come from Mars to destroy the earth and wipe out the whole human kind. But his stupor changed soon into anger.

_What a dirty trick is this!_

" Do you want to repeat? "

" Allan Quatermain in really back! " he said again, spelling out the words.

" What's the bloody matter with you? Are you teasing me? I don't like like this game! "

" It's not a game, it's the reality! " he protested with the same fury " Look by yourself! "

Said that, he threw on the table a photograph.

The other man took it and immediately he opened his eyes wide.

Without changing his expression he looked at him.

" When has it been taken? "

" The 26th September, three days ago. " he answered, calming down a little " This photo has been taken by our informer, George Sellen, who you succeeded to put him in the ranks of the British Secret Service, that is Campion Bond's organisation. When was arrived the League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen in London with the kidnapped scientists and the news of Allan's death, they'd remained here two days more for the opening of his testament and his last will, where the hunter had expressed his wish to leave all his personal property and his real estate to the widows and orphan children of his friends, dead during his adventures and his deeds, and his great longing to be buried in Africa,beside his son's grave. As soon as he'd known that it was their intention to go to the black continent to fulfil the last will of their leader, our man tried to precede them, to ascertain also the truth of some rumours about Quatermain, but he arrived one day later than the Nautilus and this is all he'd founded. "

He concluded his speech in a gloomy tone.

" An empty grave. "

The other man, lost completely his calm, became more and more excited and interested.

" And what do the local authorities say about it? "

" Those people? Hà! Those simpletons are trying to shelve the happening. In fact, it will explode a great bang if the England and the very Her Majesty learn that the body of their national hero has been stolen! "

" So is this what they think? A stealing? "

" Yes, but among the natives there's already some voices which talk about a different version of what happened. There were some people who swear before God to have seen with their own eyes Allan Quatermain pouncing on their village, asking them politely for a horse, as if nothing had happened, and being off like a shot as he was chased by the Devil! "

There were long moments of silence between them. Then, the man behind the writing – desk began to saunter through the room, thoughtful.

_Allan Quatermain alive! He's the Devil who sends me him!_

" But.. do you really believe that he's come to life again? " asked cautious the gest.

_Good Heavens! Neither in full drunkenness a man could digest a story like this!_

His interlocutor answered a bit frowning.

" If you had known him like I did, you would not have any doubt! He's a bloody bastard who doesn't lie even when he shoots the line! He would be able to descends into the Hell for pulling Beelzebub's tail and return without any scald! "

Become suddenly gloomy and melancholy, he came near the window and looked outside. The weather reflected accurately his state of mind: restless, troubled... and yearning for letting of steam. It was earger of destruction and heart – rending cries, tears and blood.

" The death of my brother was a wound which was almost healing. Now the new of the return of that bloody Quatermain has opened it and made it bleed again. And now I won't have peace untill I settle a matter with that wreck! "

_Many good men had died because of him._

The other man fixed his eyes on him without saying any word.

The unknown person looked at the lightning on the background of the boundless city and at each flash of lightning a scene of that terrible day appeared in front of him.

" Have you already a plan? " asked timid the friend, shaking him from his reflections.

He turned toward him, his face was marked by the signs of the suffering and the pain, contorted in a silent and suppressed outburst.

" Absolutely! I will drive in that bloody Quatermain's back a knife so red – hot that it will leave for all his life long the most bleeding of the wounds. "

He returned to looked beyond the window, to not show himself so weak, while a sorm of emotions, hate and old grudges, tried to wring a tear.

_Allan must pay! He can pride himself for having destroied my life in that day, but it won't pass too much time before he also will come through the same __suffering he inflicted on me! I will hit him with the most agonizing torment, a torment from which he wouldn't have any safety!_

His gest looked at him with the heart contrite, feeling sorry for the grief that his friend had suffer and that he was still suffering.

After long anguished moments, John turned and asked.

" How did Allan die? "

" Well, in accordance with the detailed report sent by Mr Sellen, he had been killed by Moriarty. " he answered.

" Of course, but.. how? " he insisted, praying to heard any information which could help him in his intent.

" Although he had the possibility to kill M, he turned to shot a hanger – on who was treatening Agent Sawyer, exposing his back to the enemy. "

Hearing that name, his heart exulted of joy. Sawyer! That's what he was looking for, the solution of all his problems! He closed his eyes, comforted and cheerful, like a man who had seen the wonderful light of the sun for the first time after many years of darkness. His revenge had never been so close to him, so real!

The other one, understanding at once he'd hit the mark and the entity of what he'd just said, he hastened to inform him about the recent developements.

" Thanks to our man in America, we have learnt that Mr. Sawyer has abandoned the League and his superiors have prevented him from having any kind of contact with them, so that the little bird wouldn't give way to the temptation to fly up, ignoring their measures. "

And, after a short pause for underlining the importance of the news, he concluded.

" Now he's alone and isolated. "

John opened his eyes. His gaze was shining with a cold and sinister light. A malicious smile came to the surface of his lips, while in his mind it was forming such a cruel plan that it will pay amply for the damage suffered.

He took a small sip of gin and, admiring the rain, started saying again.

" Do do know which were the most terrible and pitilness of the Anchient Greece? The Fury. They were the goddess of the revenge. The hit especially those people who got theirself dirty with the blood of a member of their own family. Sometimes they personified the remorse. They had, instead of the hair, entangled snakes and shook lugubrious torches to brighten them the way, for pursuing implacably their enemy without giving him safety, untill he was upset by the madness. "

Understanding the deep and implicit meaning of his speech, Roberts grew pale, looking at him preoccupied.

_He can't be serious! It's an idea too much dangerous! It won't make Quatermain suffering__: it will get him furious!_

He was going to protest but felt the intense and burdensome gaze of his interlocutor on him, which was crushing and riveting him at his will. He didn't have the courage to face the incurable sorrow of his friend.

In the meantime, the other man was thinking about his plans. He knew very well how much it was risky playing that dirty trick on Allan, but he was determined to have his revenge. He didn't have anything to lose now. What else he could take away from him?

So, turning again toward his gest, he said.

" Send a message to our man in America. Tell him to find the address of this Mr. Sawyer and get in touch with him. He must bring him here. "

" But.. how do he be able to persuade the american to come with him? "

" Oh, come on! " throwing to him the photo, he said " Use your imagination! "

The other one didn't say anything but limited himself to lower the head, like he'd just heard his own death sencence.

_If anything goes wrong, the whole Hell won't be enough to restrain Quatermain!_

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Please forgive if the logic of my story isn't much clear and if you found anything you don't like, please, tell me! My only objective is to not disappoint you! Thanks!


	5. Alone

Hello guys! Sorry for my terrible, unforgivable delay! First of all, I wanna thank everyone who reviewed my story. Thank you for your wonderful words. A special thanks to Sawyer Far for her BIG help and the moral support. Thank you a lot! Second thing, I want to assure you that (even if it will take a lifetime!) this story will have a conclusion. Don't worry! =)

**WHEN YOU'RE GONE**

**Chapter 5: ****Alone**

_Another day has gone  
I'm still all alone  
How could this be  
You're not here with me  
You never said goodbye  
Someone tell me why  
Did you have to go  
And leave my world so cold_

_Everyday I sit and ask myself_  
_How did love slip away_  
_Something whispers in my ear and says_  
_That you are not alone_  
_I am here with you_  
_Though you're far away_  
_I am here to stay_

_But you are not alone_  
_I am here with you_  
_Though we're far apart_  
_You're always in my heart_  
_But you are not alone_

Although at a first look it seemed an old, shabby edifice, the air a bit dreary and for nothing reassuring, the _Regency Building _was a construction of good realization and, surely, one of the most elegant buildings of the city. Originally built for being a residence of offices and important administrative functions now adapted to take apartments. The structure appeared tall and massive, completely of eclectic taste, with some architectural element which recalled a lot the style of the last century that was possible to notice in the decorations of the entrance. Though it was an ancient building , corroded by the time and worn by the frequent reconstruction never completed, it was sturdy, made with filled bricks, colored by an intense sienna, which, with a skilful play of chromatic contrasts, stood out from the white of the plaster of the thick cornices of the windows.

In one of them, placed at the top floor, from where it enjoyed one of the most wonderful and spectacular sight of the whole city that it was possible to ever have, was Tom Sawyer, sitting on the cornice with his back tiredly leaning against the inside jamb. The left leg dangled freely in the vacuum of the dawn, while the other limb, slightly bent, remained on the thick edged of the window. The arms were crossed, one on the top of the other, resting on the knees while in the right hand he lazily held a bottle of peated whisky, which only one third of its aged contents remained.

The soft features of his face were lightly darkened by a deep misery, revealing herself in all her atrocious intensity under the pale and dismal light of the moon. Stars of the sky reflected a twinkling in his penetrating eyes, made bright by a thick mirror of tears, which were directed towards an indefinite point on the horizon. The cool breeze of the night, with a nearly motherly gesture seemed to console him, gently stroking his hair, while with an insubstantial hand she kept back the tears, hardening with biting cold the furrows left by the recent crying.

Tom looked on with an air of infinite melancholy at the city extending almost to infinity, beyond the dark river in the dusk of the night. The lights of the street-lamps which escorted its passage were reflected dancing and shivering in the water ruffled by the wind, like reverberations of thousands and thousands of candles which flowed into an eternal darkness. The shining eyes of the river. Every so often a sumptuously illuminated boat passed through the water with its lazy and slow gait, proceeding with a leisurely and gentle rhythm from the waves, which broke the image of the lights reflected on the river, making it explode in bright dust, likepieces of glowing glass, creating an amazing play of light and shade.

And beyond the river…was the city, with its exterminated maze of illuminated street and dark alleys. The noises of the night-life that continued without pause, the music of the dance club, the rhythmical coming and going of the coaches, the polychrome of the voices of the people, the false notes of a few drunkards and the screaming of some hysterical women soothed and softened, composing paradoxically in their fusing together a romantic, gentle melody , a languid praise to the moon which stood out over the boundlessness of the buildings, with her suite of sparkling heavenly bodies, pale and cold lights in the dark blue of the night. The entire city was an immense fragment of black quartz, gems of light-studded. New Orleans appeared like a second sky, embroidered by artificial stars. The buildings were made even darker by the presence of a full moon, haughty yet still bashful, with the coolness of her light, silver-glaze which emerged like Venus from the waters, from the darkness of the city.

The magnificent sight of that enchanting night made the inner grief of the young man even more heart-rending and sharper.

From time to time Tom rested his head desolately against the wall, closing his eyes and letting himself run through the sorrowful and intensely melancholic wave of memories and images which flowed out in front of his eyes. The mental pictures were superimposing and taking turns with each other like crystal drops of rain which fell in a clear pool, where they produced waves interferring with one upon the other, never leaving his tormented spirit in peace. Seeing those moments again, so wonderful and, simultaneously, so painful, the boy felt a deep, cruel bitterness, but similarly he felt it grow lighter and sweeter in his heart, likened to a feeble blaze which struggled to drive away the darkness that had gotten him down to a nostalgic, languid bliss. The adventure lived with the League had been the most beautiful as well as the most heartbreaking experience of all his life, and Tom didn't know if he should be grateful for that opportunity or be sorry for it. If he had never joined the League, he would never have met Allan, a man of strong charisma and high moral worth, who had been practically a father figure for the youth; but at the same time, the old hunter would not ever die because of the boy.

He could see that day again, clear and limpid like the light of the sun, as he was living it even now, instead he wasn't at the top floor of the _Regency Building,_ but in the cramped room of a tower of the Moriarty's refuge, from which a crack in the wall blew arrogantly a bitterly cold wind. It was like watching a theatrical performance, a tragedy of which he perfectly knew the finale. The young man could see himself and the others like the actors of that representation. He observed Allan cover Moriarty, and felt the blood freeze in his veins when he saw the old hunter looking into the mask. He knew what was going to happen. It was a scene he saw hundreds and hundreds of times, and every time the young man had tried to shout to his mentor not to turn back, not to worry about him. Not to save him. But nobody would listen to him, as if he was cut-off from the event, like he was screaming underwater, where only he could hear his own cries, while he pleaded towards Allan, repeating the only sentence he could say in those fleeting instants.

_Don't do it._

But every time the ending was always the same, and for hundred time Tom saw Quatermain turn back and be pierced by a stab so violent that Sawyer could feel it in his own flesh, as if Moriarty didn't hit the great white hunter, but _him_. For a moment the breath jammed and it seemed his heart too stopped. But then, after what seemed like an eternity, the pain exploded in his chest, acquiring the brutal intensity of a sudden stabbing at every second that passed. He felt the same knife which stabbed Allan crossing his muscles, runnig through his lungs and being driven straight in the heart.

But the thing that hurt him the most was instead of going to succour his saver, his beloved father figure, he troubled himself with that other moron, that insignificant, lurid bastard who was sneaking away through the ices of the Mongolia. Tom had remained astonished. He couldn't believe it was him, having behaved like this towards a person who had sacrificed his own life to save his. He still felt the knife driven in the back, consumed by a red-hot pain, breathing with more difficulty, while his heart burnt of rage towards M but above all, against himself.

In that occasion he would have screamed at himself to not give a damn about M and think about Allan. But he knew it was of no use. As before he couldn't spare Quatermain from the fatal thrust of the Phantom, so now he couldn't help him. And so Tom couldn't do anything but watch the scene helpless and grief-stricken, while his eyes widened by horror and filling with pearly tears, fixed upon the motionless and suffering figure of Allan, who was slowly gliding into the oblivion of death. Just when the great adventurer, his mentor and his father figure breathed his last, Tom woke up in the dead of night, inside the deep dark of his room, wet through sweat and tears, and panting so hard that it tore his lungs. His heart was bombarding the chest so sturdily that he could hear it , and the last words Allan spoke were still reverberating in his mind, what he called him.

… _son…_

Quatermain received a mortal stab to save him and Sawyer didn't succour him. He let him die, without even a word of comfort.

Dying, he called him_ son_ while Tom… didn't say him anything. Neither a 'thank you' nor a 'sorry'. Nothing. He didn't tell him even that…

… _he cares for him._

He did nothing for Allan and now he regretted it with all his being.

He'd never been so miserable.

He closed his eyes, feeling the already familiar, penetrating sensation of smart prickling, like the person who felt the crying corroding their eyes by that time, on a par with a powerful acid, the last defences which he himself offered to restrain it, to not let him free again. Feeling the urge to start drinking again, he had a brief moment of hesitation, like a mild electric shock immobilizing the hand. Bitterly disillusioned by then, Tom knew too well that the alcohol wouldn't annihilate the inextinguishable remorse that struggled day and night in his conscience like a wild beast chained-up. It followed him like a shadow, an unbearable stench of which he himself was drenched. It was as if he had Hercules's tunic on, soaked in the centaur Nesso's poisoned blood, which during the day gave him some sort of illusory minute of peace, then at dusk, it began again, even more raging, to torment him incessantly; and every single night it appear again on his mind, taking life and form in his dreams. All those milling and noisy images crowded in front of his eyes, recurring with different tonalities of anguish and drama that began to fade and deplete under the overpowering effect of the alcohol. But it was just this last one which made them clearer than before, more burning, brighter. More cruel. It was like jetting salt on an open wound, and falling into a vicious circle from which he couldn't manage to free himself, like an abyss that time after time sucked him down. He knew he was getting worse. But it was too late. He was a slave to this by then.

He drew the bottleneck up to his lips and drank, while the lights of his eyes became even more shimmering, dazzling , and new, sparking drops beginning to ripple the lucid surface of those deep and enchanting soul's mirrors.

It was the longest sip. Tom felt the alcohol inflaming his throat with the same intensity with which new tears ran down, burning and unstoppable, along the handsome features of his face. The sweet savour of the liquor mixed with the salty taste of the tears in a cruel play of contrasts where each one tried to suppress the other in an exorable fight with no holds barred. The warm against the cold. The sweet against the bitter.

When the draught finished, the bottle was empty by then. Tom fixed his eyes on it for an instant. The last time he got roaring drunk had been at Huck's death, another dear person he lost from few months ago and in very dramatic circumstances. More than a friend, Huck had been like a brother. They had grown up together and they had had gorgeous adventures and splendid moments. When Huck died – even in that occasion, before his eyes – Tom's only thought that remained was nothing other than the revenge. He felt that he owed something to Huck, and he would never stop until he got it. Many of his superiors believed him to be "too emotionally involved" by then, calling it "psychologically volatile and dangerous". When they schemed to reassign him to other kinds of assignments, the young man balked in his purpose, discussing and arguing furiously that he nearly risked being dismissed. Still, he never moved from his ideas, not for an instant.

He would move heaven and earth to continue the case which he was investigating with his fellow co-worker, and accomplish what Huck had started, till the final revenge.

And at the end, Tom was more tenacious than they were and won the case. The young man investigated and followed the every sign that the Phantom had left behind him: a long wake of blood, a wide furrow made by death and devastation, which contributed to thining even more that tenuous, fragile thread supporting the invisible Damocles' sword which was the war that threatened, baleful and gloomy, the whole world. He hunted the Phantom as far as Europe, animated by a determination that made him cold to the danger and insensible to the struggle, driven by the conviction that, by that time, he had nothing more that crazy criminal could take away from him. Nothing that could bend him again; to the pain.

But once he was there, things changed and when M killed Quatermain, Sawyer understood how much he was mistaken. By killing Moriarty he avenged Huck, but the revenge didn't give him back his best friend. On the contrary, she took even Allan, the man he'd just begun to see like a father.

He'd just lost another time.

Tom shook his head.

Remembrances. They continued to fragment and to recompose over and over again. They infiltrated his thoughts, feathery and silent, imperceptible, and caught him with their impetuous emotional drive, depriving him of the will of reaction. Every fragment of those memories was for him a keen sliver of a shattered mirror which wounded and racked his heart. But as much as he suffered terribly, the young man had no intention of eschewing at that atrocious torture. He did nothing to prevent their untiring re-forming, but rather, in his deepest down, it was he who recalled them. Deliberately.

And since he couldn't repair his mistakes, he would never forgive himself.

But what would punishing himself be for? What would it change?

He made his decisions by that time, all the events of his business took turns in inevitable and unrelenting ways, unleashed by a dreadful ineluctability, with almost mathematic precision. And nothing of what had already happened would realize themselves again. No possibility to remedy. No way to come back.

By now, those moments were gone forever and they would never return.

Sighing sadly, Tom was going to get up and (get) another bottle when unexpectedly, he heard knocking at the door.

Immediately his mind turned to his superiors, but not without a weighty note of profound irritation that made his blood boil in his veins.

_No! What a __nuisance! Again its him! Is it possible he always comes to pester me in the worse moments?_

The blows continued to recur but the young man remained where he was and in silence. He didn't feel up to receiving anyone, much less a boss. He wanted only to be left alone. For once in his life he wanted give up. He wanted to let himself be defeated by the sadness, let himself be carried by the irresistible force of despair, and to let himself be broken by the remorse. He was tired of standing up to them, tired of trying to fight them. He'd fought them all of the time when he was still with the League. Striving in any way possible to hide his grief. Because they had all suffered from the loss of their leader, and Tom didn't have the right to add even his own pain, to their's.

The boy didn't know if, but in the end, he'd managed to convince them. He only knew that he couldn't do it anymore. To fight. To sham. To be strong.

Now he wanted only to remain alone.

Tom waited. He would let whoever it was behind the door to believe that there was nobody in the house so that, once the pest would get tired of flaking his hand in that manner, he would go and leave him in peace.

_If it's important, he will return._

The man went on knocking but there was something strange in his way of doing it. It wouldn't be the first time his chief burst into his apartment at such an absurd hour, though usually he announced himself. But this time he didn't do it. He didn't ask even if there was someone in. He simply knocked, with blows quite rhythmic, deep, which echoed almost sombre in the dark silence of the room.

_You can knock till kingdom come; in any case I won't open to__ you. _

But after a few minutes the blows stopped. Tom heard the man sliding something under the door, before turning on his heels. At that moment the profound echoing of his steps could be heard along the stairs of the building, and going out slowly into the quiet.

The secret agent waited some more instants in silence, and as soon as he'd heard the outside door closing with a dull tug, he got up, going to the door and picking up the object. Examining it with scarce interest, he noticed it was a piece of thick, yet smooth paper. It seemed to be a photograph, but it was too dark in the room to see it, so he went to the window to view it better under the light of the moon.

And he saw it.

It was indescribable the wave of emotions which assailed him in a few seconds. Shock, anger, anguish and horror were all condensed in the cramped space of his soul. They thronged among themselves like beasts in cage, like many convicts who pushed and rushed themselves violently in a claustrophobic cell, all screaming, all ferocious. He felt his spirit unstable, his soul at the mercy of the onslaught of tall waves, while in his conscience broke out a furious storm, with flashes of lightning, so numerous than they lightened opencast the whole ocean. There was an incessant rain of thunderbolts all along the line of the horizon and the rage, which predominated and smothered the other voices, like the howling wind of a twister, irate and destructive, devastating his soul and making his heart a powder-keg of violent emotions, an authentic powder-magazine which was on the point of blasting. Tom grabbed the photograph with both hands, his eyes fiercely glued to that image, as if to make sure he didn't forget what he saw. He couldn't manage to have a constant emotion. He didn't know what to think. It seemed to him simply an impossible thing. Inconceivable.

_But how… could they ... Did they dare… to do such a thing? Which… which son of a bitch would have the stomach for… for… _

But he didn't manage to finish the sentence.

Unable to suffer that image any longer, he turned disconcerted towards the window, grasping the blind almost with involuntary violence and hiding his face among its soft darts, while his closed eyes shone insistently of angry tears of temper.

_Why? Why __him? Allan had enemies… maybe he exaggerated a bit with them… but there was no need to avenge themselves in that way! What could he have done to deserve such treatment? _

Opening at last his eyes again, Tom looked instinctively towards the street and, without meaning to, he saw the man stop near at the entrance of his apartment, and smugly light a cigarette. Having noticed him, all the sadness and emotions which constricted and struggled with each other since that moment had concentrated in the heart of the youth, dissolved like fog to the sun to make space for an invading blind rage which went to nurture that one pre-existent which burned already inside him. It was a hate he never felt so strong before, intoxicating and penetrating, which at a stroke, dismissed from his mind every inheritance of alcohol or drunkeness, giving him a mental lucidity and energy he never had before.

_Bastard! I'll__ fix you now._

Immediately Tom rushed to the wardrobe, grabbing his black coat and guns and exited the room.

As soon as he was in the street, he noticed straightaway that the man hadn't gone far.

Seen from that distance the stranger looked like a normal man, wearing a chic, dark suit, which matched a just as elegant hat. He was walking on the quay, apparently without being in a hurry. His tall figure seemed crushed under the intense, warm light of the street lamps, a light made dull by the cigarette smoke which lifted beyond his broad shoulders and shrouded the individual almost completely , like an halo, while his long, tapering shadow was silhouetted sharply along the road, cutting it transversely.

While he still had his hand on the handle of the main door, the boy quickly assessed the strategy of approach. Although the agonizing urgency to know more burned inside him, he didn't want to make any reckless moves which dictated by an excruciating anxiety, could make him lose the one who seemed to bethe only person able to tell him something about the photograph. So for the first time, Tom thought to restrict himself to only follow him silently, without the man realizing it, and at the first opportunity, when he expected nothing, to bear down upon him and properly maul him till he would spitout all he knew on the dirty manner. Otherwise at best, to see where the stranger stayed at and making a little, _innocent_, night-call on him. But while closing the main door, the young man used a bit too much strength, which caused a noise that caught the attention of the individual, who turned back to look.

The mysterious man in black and the Secret Agent stayed still for a long instant, studying each other from afar. Tom tried to catch as many details as possible regarding this shady character. The stranger didn't seemed to be alarmed at all by the unexpected appearance of the young man, or rather, he didn't turn a hair, just standing there stock-still, as if instead of a man, he was only any element of the urban architecture. Perhaps he wasn't even armed, nonetheless – maybe it was the way with which that individual "announced himself" or, more simply, the fact that he seemed strange in his attitude, almost excessively steady and reserved, not natural for a person who had a news that was a 'real bomb' inside him. Sawyer oddly dislike that man, like it was an inner instinct.

_Hmm… Bad character. One dollar against a spit he's immersed till the eyes in this bloody story. _– thought the young man to himself, without taking his eyes off the mysterious man.

Desiring to prove his presentiments, Tom moved slowly in the man's direction, endeavouring to conceal the unfriendly intention he nursed inside. He didn't want to risk alarming him, at least not while he remained out of range, and for an instant it seemed in fact that the stranger was waiting for the young man. But before long, the boy was nearly covering half of the distance that divided them, The man turned round again, and throwing the cigarette into the river, he started walking in his previous direction. At first he kept a tranquil and relaxed amble, as he did before, but very soon his pace began to become more brisk, until he came in proximity of a narrow alley which led to a street with an acute angle, where he threw himself into with the agility of a cat.

Seeing his actions, Tom had the confirmation of his suspicions and his rage tripled.

_What a __filthy…! _

And he gave chase.

He left at his back the main street which ran along the river , throwing himself into dark alleys and claustrophobic shortcuts, where the high buildings that marked them threw long and gloomy shadows on the walls. The profound resounding of their fast steps dissolved slowly into the deep silence of those motionless and deserted streets. His pursued wasn't as fast as Tom, but offset the disadvantage by turning frequently, almost at every street corner, making the chase slow down. Both men thread into winding secondary roads, flitting in front of the shadowy backshops of restaurants and shops, where there was abandoned and amassed material of any kind, where barrels containing waste were left to the plunder of some stray animal. The landscape shot off beside him, rapid and quiet like a shade, but Tom didn't pay mind to anything that surrounded him. His look was glued perennially at his target which, at inconstant intervals, disappeared and resurfaced from the darkness of the way. The American spy's eyes didn't lose him for a single instant. They followed him at every turning, as if they knew exactly when the man would turn, and they persecuted him, incessant like a curse.

As much as the boy strived to remain lucid and self-assured, his mind was mangled by hundreds of questions which galloped, pawing, mad and uncontrollable, through his head, like a prairie beaten by the unrestrained run of an entire drove of buffalo, while his heart was banged by violent, conflicting emotions, like a miserable raft abandoned to the fury of the sea. There was an anxiety, oppressive and febrile, wanting to reach as quickly as possible the answers he urgently needed, as it was a matter of life and death. Because it was such a dirty trick, there was anguish at such monkey business and cowardly action, he would never have expected it. And mostly there was rancour, because what they'd done was something of unforgivable.

All the times he thought again about it, that image he'd seen in the picture – the image of Allan's grave, desecrated - he couldn't help connecting it to those few, but wonderful memories he had of the person buried there. At that moment his rage unmercifully began again, causing him to feel tears of anger moistening his eyes, until a ruthlessly cool breeze ran up to his face and took over almost immediately his blind, racking rancour that gave him some instant of peace, driving them back.

Nobody could make a mockery of the affection he felt for Allan.

And if he ever caught up to the author of that horrible action, nothing in the world would have prevented him from shooting a bullet between their eyes.

He had only one target in mind: to catch that bastard. At any cost.

In the meantime, while Tom was engrossed in his thoughts, the scenery around him changed. Districts that before had abounded with elegant little shops and restaurants with their striking signs and colors, now looked more unassuming and untidy, characterized by constructions much smaller and more unequally disposed in mass, making a labyrinth of claustrophobic alleyways and dimly lit lanes. The neat buildings in masonry supplanted modest wooden accommodations, some of them supplied with a brick chimney which at intervals, had walls that were of leaned casks and varied material, not always in a good state. A few windows were veiled by a faint coat of reflected light, while the bulk of them remained murky and silent in the darkness. Even the lampposts were drastically reduced in number and the only illumination that brightened the roads now was a natural one, accompanied in some areas by the light of lanterns that hung at the entrance or on the balconies of the buildings which overlooked the corners of the streets. Sometimes he passed by the rearward of some punk shebang or seedy establishments like "_Le vieux de minuit_" or the "_Maison Estrahan_", where the smell of smoke and food combined into a sickly mixture which wafted through the wooden doors as if they had been always open.

But none of this could graze the determined spy. The breeze of the evening made his skin hard, while the white moonlight alternated with irregular spells on his handsome features, as the chaotic and vociferous crowd of doubts and questions were literally beating inside his head like it was a pignatta. The shock of the news had opened a trapdoor above an abyss of sorry queries and obscure points which were rising now, gushing and relentless, to the surface, like the hot water of a geyser. Tom attempted to keep them at bay. He drove them back time after time, fearing that that hell of a mess he had in his mind would pull him off his stride during this chase. Nevertheless, there were unfortunately some questions he couldn't ignore as much as he struggled to not listen, and soon he found himself thinking about them.

First of all: Who the devil could be able to do such a thing? Which dirty, tired of living son of a bitch would ever stoop to do such a bastardly deed? Violating a grave?

Tom gave a grimace of disgust.

_Surely it was__a guy with whom Allan had treaded on his toe, or who was in such a funk to pick on him when he still was alive! Shit bastard! But when I get him, I'll kill him! I swear I'll do it, bugger! As soon as I take care of that idiot in front of me and make him tell me where that son of a bitch is (because he'll tell me, at the cost of making him over into a human marmalade!), then I'll go to see the big bastard in his house and I'll start thrashing him too, before sending him to Hell! I really want to let him have it so much it that, in the end, they will have to take him away with broom and dustpan! Filthy rotter! He doesn't have the faintest idea of how much of a bastard __**I**__ can be! Mucky shithead! I'll shoot all his joints! And I'll make him regret it if he starts bellyaching! Maybe I'll let Hyde do this little job, since he has a ball at doing this kind of thing… _

But as he unconsciously pronounced that name…

_Shit! The League! I must tell them! They don't know anything about it!_

And, all at once, there was a sharp change of mood. His heart contracted immediately with anguish and Tom was assailed by a febrile anxiety, imagination seized with the most distressing tension to the moment where, once he settled up with his shy and bashful friend up ahead, he would have to inform them. How would he tell them? What would they think? How would they react? Certainly, his superiors would prevent him from contacting the League again, and they would do everything to take his guns… _but hell, they must about know it!_

But then out of the blue, like under a strange and unknown force, all those thoughts which were clamouring and mixing up inside his head before, stopped at a single stroke, as if suddenly thousands of people who were screaming instantly fell silent at the sight of an intruder.

Was he really sure that his friends didn't know anything about it?

He was nonplussed by the sensation of cold and panic that welled, echoing that question in his mind. The young man stayed focused on that idea with trepidation in his soul , as one who just realized he had said something aloud that never should have been said.

_Yes, I'm sure._ – He said slowly to himself, enunciating almost every single syllable, as if he could implant those words in his heart.

He carried on telling himself thousand and thousand times over that he reposed the utmost trust in his ex-fellows and friends. If they really knew about it, they would not hesitate a single instant to point it out. Because for him, they had been like a family, a true family that would never ever, for nothing in the world, have said what he had in his heart. They would never behave in such a blameworthy and dishonest manner with him.

But for as much heartsick tenacity and unwavering perverseness he put in those sentences, they didn't manage to completely erase that disturbing shiver which still subsisted in his soul, nor managed to melt those residues of ice which stayed clutched to his spirit like a climbing plant, whose roots sank even more into the cement, working at the destruction of the entire edifice.

In fact a strange, obscure hesitation had overwhelmed him by then. To the previous iron answer he'd just given – a spontaneous answer from his heart, pure and sincere like the spring water which should have melted all his misgiving and distressing uncertainties with the delicate, but powerful touch of a warm sunray– there soon arose other doubts and torturing issues which began to assault the sturdiness of his conviction like parasites who consumed it slowly, bit by bit.

And in the vacuum they left, sprouted the suspicion.

There were _too many_ things that didn't square. If the League was in the dark about it, why didn't that man go to them first, as it would be more logicical and coherent, but instead went to him? Tom knew after he had left the League, that the dispositions of his bosses pointed to the fact it would be difficult for him to ever have the possibility to come back to them. Then why apply to a member who was completely out of the game? What do they expect from him? Of course, in order to know the name of that immense cad who was behind all this and make him pay, Sawyer would be more than well disposed to trample a mountain of regulations and to kick in the teeth everyone who would take the liberty to bar his path, but the League would have done much more than him. And in half the time.

Almost without thinking about it, Tom slowed down for a moment, as if that little change could better help him to find a solution, or at least, to put some idea in order. He wasn't understanding anything and his brain seemed on the point of going crazy, without considering that all the bile he had in his body along with the adrenalin that inflamed his veins and radiated frenetically through all his limbs, like an electric discharge unleashed by the shock and the rage, weren't helping him at all with his reflections.

_And if the League had managed to learn about Allan's grave,__ but didn't have made it in time to inform me?_

But he rejected that thought immediately . With the means they had? Impossible!

_Unless…_

But Tom didn't dare to finish the sentence. He foiled it immediately, disposing of it in an attempt to extinguish the bitter idea which had generated it, as if it was a highly infected thing in which he feared contagion. But he wasn't quick enough, and that presentiment had by then left his mind, spreading fast like a poison through his limbs. He felt his spirit faltering as if it had been hit _physically_, his heart becoming heavy like lead, like a dark uncertainty had petrified it, freezing all his emotions into an agonizing feeling of emptiness and loss.

_But no, no, NO! It's absurd!_ – He said to himself with vehemence, shaking the head as he tried hard to dispel that surmise; as if imprinting more rage in the words, he could give more voice to his thought. – _Why on earth would they have kept back such a serious thing? They knew I held Allan dear. Hell! He'd been our fellow, after all! (All right, for me he's been something more) But even just for this fact, they should have told me! In other words, I don't think they…_

But as he said in his mind those words, Tom bit his tongue in a purely instinctual gesture, having just realized of given unintentionally, but in the most complete way, the right answer for that question.

"_They knew I held him dear."_

In fact, what else would have caused him in the end all this anguish, rage, sorrow, disheartenment? He had been pulled out from a state of gloomy apathy which branded every single day since his separation from the League, in such a violent and brutal way that it caused a laceration in his soul. It felt as if he had been seized and flogged again and again, knocked down by a multitude of raging emotions that he couldn't control, and obscure questions which made him ill. The blow had been so terrible that he still struggled to find order for both his head and in his heart, nor did he even barely manage to find a gleam of light where he could take his bearings, a little crag where he could defend himself from the unrelenting attacks of despair which were now more frequent and more painful. No point of hope from where he could start again. Earlier before, he felt ghastly when he watched his days passing, like how a blind person would watch them; every day the same, all uncoloured. He was wasting away from the remorse and grief, hating himself for all the things he should have done, but didn't. For all the things he should have said, but didn't.

Of course his friends would not have wanted this for him. He himself – he founded himself confessing it – wouldn't have wanted this for them.

Tom stayed for some long moments, cruelly held tight to that conviction, completely dominated by the logic with which it appeared. It answered without any doubt, a lot of those questions which tormented him the most, and he turned it over again and again, hoping deep in his gut, in a crescendo of anxiety and dismay, to manage to find a leak in his thinking and so destroy it once for all.

But he didn't find any.

Then he decided to not think about it anymore. With great effort, he struggled to dispense of that unworthy thought, exiling it to the remotest corners of his mind, while imposing upon himself a more confident and strong spirit to believe in the fairness and friendship of his ex-teammates. And to prevent his mind from going back to the hesitation and doubt, Tom chose to renew his chase with double doggedness.

They had been running already for several minutes, but Tom still had enough energy to spend and became more invigorated when his ears heard the first panting wheezes of the fellow in front of him. The little man was drained by then. A fleeting smile showed spontaneously on the Secret Agent's lips. Finally this interminable run was finishing! About time too! He could see that the road was nearing its end at the verge of the alley he was coming to, and he could easily hear the resonance of the sea, along with its strong and distinctive smell pervading more into the air. Even the wind had become more vigorous and brisker, and it burst into the street, grating at the closed windows and modulating its inaudible sound in a feeble wail. They had now entered the port zone of the city which branched off the street into several narrow alley ways and congested short lanes, where his unidentified subject would have a hard time taking refuge in. All that was left was a large area which unequivocally lead to the breakwater. Tom would have all the space to aim carefully and fill the leg of that wily person with lead if he still felt like running after all the panting.

When the man in black got to the end of the road, he suddenly turned a corner, evading Tom's sight.

But as the young spy took the last corner, he got a very nasty surprise.

The man was disappeared.

In fact, front of him it opened onto a vast, very wide lay-by, destined for the unloading of goods, completely desert. In that so open space, the nocturnal light breeze got more vigour, blowing with the strength of a torrent, spacing his forehead from the blonde forelocks and smarting him with its intense and heady smell of saltiness.

Along the edge of the quay, scattered in different points at various distance from them, numerous boxes of the most assorted dimensions were leaning against each other, while heavy sacks, bulging with their contents, were piled up the ones on the others and massed in the shelter of the cases, or they laid in a messy way against the walls of the big storehouses, which, with their spare and shabby fronts, bordered the port of discharge, almost looking beyond it, toward the enormous reaches of black water which dissolved in the darkness, amalgamating with the horizon.

The lay-by was immersed in an almost surreal calm, immobilized in a grave and oppressive silence. Everything was inert, petrified, as if that chilly wind would have frozen all the things. Only perceptible movements were the mild sway of the masts of some boats berthed not much distant and the free and rebellious of a rope left undo. Such quietness was made even more heavy and gloomy by the lone and melancholic howling of the wind over the sea. A long sound, deep and continuing. Furious, but at the same time anguished and whingeing, which merged, like in a grotesque chorus, the breaking of the water against the quay and the insistent slamming of the bolts and latches which closed the shutters and the doors of the buildings.

To complete the picture, painting it with a predominant cold and wan light, were the shining rays of the moon which now soared brighter and bigger than before upon the ocean and which reflected image was shattered in sparkling diamonds which shimmered in a continued and disordered movement on the dark and restless surface of the water.

In a first time, Tom didn't react. He was simply left dumbfounded by the fact that his mysterious friend had vaporized literally. Then, the next instant, as soon as he got over the stupor, a train of violent cursing and heated exclamations left straightaway from his brain, most of which were towards himself, for letting the pint-sized man flee.

The outburst took him something like five good minutes. Then, while he was still cutting loose towards himself, he started inspecting the surrounding setting, as if he expected to find the character hided there, somewhere. In fact, once the boy had got the lay-by, the noise of the man's steps had suddenly stopped, swallowed by the lament of the wind and by the sound of the sea, and that made him presume that, in all probability, the friend was still nearby. He must be!

Sawyer covered all the perimeter of the area, controlling thoroughly in every hole and every alley. He looked round more and more times, as if he hoped, almost at the last minute, to notice something that was missed before, anything that could be useful in his search. But everything was motionless. Everything was dark. He listened, almost holding his breath, but nothing. An oppressive silence surrounded him. He tried also to examine the tracks on the dusty ground of the mole, helped by the light of the moon, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. It was a port, dammit! There were galore of tracks!

Disgusted by the last act of cowardice of his mysterious fellow, pissed off with himself for having been done like a child and even nervier for having allowed two hundred of questions trot freely through his mind, them all still without an answer. Tom flew off the handle and a kicked hard a close case there, making its contents vibrating inside. Then, almost regretting immediately having let himself go with that infantile gesture, he turned still fuming towards the sea and, passing a hand on the back of the neck in a frustrated act, he force himself to calm himself, fixing his gaze on that enormous, choppy expanse of dark water which stretched without limit beyond his eyes and having deep sighs, while his furious expression regained slowly the sombre tints of the anguish.

A so bitter and so unendurably heartbreaking disappointment collapsed on his shoulders like a unbearable weight, so heavily and brutally, that all his energies which had still remained from the run, instantly disappeared like snow at the sun, and the tiredness which he still had behind from the entire day began to make itself felt on his body, eating his bones and tearing to pieces his muscles.

The young man founded himself tired and dejected, fixing his eyes upon the sea, and, at that point, he let finally all his bad thoughts, which he'd strenuously hold back before, all his darkest fears and distressing agitations which, until then, had incessantly afflicted him, getting him.

_And now, what am I going to tell the others?_

If he could, he would sit down on a case, taking his head in his hands, while he was struggling to find a bit of peace in his heart, listening the voice of the sea. But he didn't manage to find any peace. It was as if he had a fire on. The anxiety of not knowing what to do was suffocating him. From a side he felt the natural, impatient instinct to inform immediately the League about the recent events. If he couldn't go there, then he would make them come here. His superiors wouldn't be a problem; at the end, it wasn't the first time he drove them spare because of his attitude. The boy knew in fact that they didn't want he to get in touch again with his ex-mates – although he was unaware of the reasons – and he had more than a normal suspect of believing that they were keeping watch on him a bit, considering his previous – and numerous – cases of insubordination. But, otherwise, it wasn't the first time he gave a damn about their 'amendments' as well, and, as spy, he'd learned perfectly how the Secret Service did to watch a suspect's movements, so he knew how to evade their surveillance.

But, from the other side, he had another, much more seductive and inviting idea met his eyes. It looked like pure, simply perfect, thirst-quenching like fresh water in a day of sultry weather, charming like the moving, slow but never-ending, progressing of a life in a dreary and desolate place. Strong like the hope in a devastated heart. It has clearly the ideal solution. He must do one thing only: never told anyone about that story and deal with the unidentified bastard on his own. It was all here. In fact, if his friends already knew what had happened and didn't tell him, there wouldn't be a big damage. But, if, on the contrary, they didn't know it at all, it remained him only as the keeper of that news and of all its devastating emotional reaction that it could produce. In effect, he said to himself, if that accursed man had wanted to inform also the League, he would have already done it.

So it remained just the boy.

And then… it wasn't necessary to trouble the League, alarming uselessly them, - and to resort to their relative powers – just for cop a damned bastard or that of group of scoundrels who were the authors of the lousy action. Even just one person who how to wield a couple of '45 was enough to send them to shovel coal at Devil's. It was only a matter of conducting a little investigation on it, smashing some heads in to get information – naturally, keeping the lot in the dark of his bosses - and he would wrap up tranquilly the case without that anyone would sense of anything. So, everything would be resumed only and entirely in a simple and 'innocent' "I go, kill him and return". No bad news. No problem. No sorrow.

The young man didn't want his friends to suffer again. Even if they lived now in a reality which he didn't belong to anymore, even if he could never think again the Nautilus as a home, for him they still were, in any case, a family and, even from further the ocean, he was thinking of them every day, with deep affection and a melancholic smile, before that the remorse came back to hunt him. And now he had the opportunity to do something for them: to save them to smart again. It was everything he asked and for this he was well ready to incur some risk and to challenge his ringleader's deadly anger. Anything to keep them far from a new grief. And then… maybe neither the League had recovered completely from Allan's death and he went to make it worse? The hell with what he'd thought before! Before, in fact, it had been different. Before he'd been bloody sure to pin that damned character down. He would have bet his own head! He'd taken for granted the fact that he would have elicited, at the end, some answers or any kind of information which could have counterbalance, at least partially, the shock unleashed by the bad news he would have tell them, like: "it has been done this ignoble action but, on the other hand, we know who to thank". But now, what he had? Just an anonymous photo, with no date, nor names, nor addresses. How could he come up to the League with only that loathing of clues? No, no. Nothing doing! He must fend for himself.

But, if that filthiness would surface? If his friends would come to know that he was aware of what had happened and he'd never said a single word? Would he cause by any chance a pain and a sorrow even bigger than that one the boy hoped to avoid at the beginning? The damage of such a disaster would be catastrophic! If he would chose to keep his mouth shut, he would act with extreme caution and manage the League would _never_ learn it.

But the fear of the failure magnified the risk and crushed his courage.

Tom lowered his head, as if he'd founded himself just in front of the people in question and he wanted to avoid their looks. He didn't know what to do. Every choice he tried to make, it brings him again to go against his own logic with which he had armed his previous convictions. More than one time he founded himself again on the point of retracting everything he'd believed just and right to do on those people who, for almost a month, he loved as a family. More and more often he saw again himself playing the part of that one who knows but doesn't say a word. Of the rat who betrays his friends.

He didn't want this. They didn't deserve it from him.

And so, while he was still distressing and against his mind in the nerve-racking shot to find a solution which would be the less painful for his ex-fellows but, at the same time, the fairest to take, all of a sudden, Sawyer had the sense of hearing something that made him starting at a stroke, as if he'd just felt a chilling shiver climbing up abruptly his spine.

He heard something. Something that he didn't hope to hear again anymore.

Noise of steps, behind his back.

He sprang round, believing that, finally, his shady character had got tired to play hide-and-seek by that time and eventually had decided to show his ugly face. But as he had a chance to see who was coming, a new, unpleasant sensation hit violently him, almost taking his breath away, like a hard punch on the stomach.

It was the most incredible circus of scowls he'd ever seen! Rouges of all the heights, with snouts worthy of ex-jailbirds, who still smelled of gaol and pigswill of prison. They looked like those squads of bashers who forced to recruit sailors, maybe making them gulp down some hellish muck or, otherwise, resorting even to the use of dowels or a good blow of black-jack. They were eight. Lots of them were dressed as sailors: they were wearing oilskins jumpers, leather vests and jackets as tattered as their owners were; some of them had on also one or two caps and some hat typical of sea men. Let alone their faces! Those ones were one uglier than the other! The majority of those scoundrels had thick moustache and so shaggy stubble that they must be rougher than the skin of a shark. There was even a hooligan, a naughty boy not much older than Tom, with smooth black hair, the long and thin face, and an insupportable look of supercilious. From behind him, it emerged another fine hulk, completely bald, the big nut which shone under the moon rays like a polished billiard-ball and a sharp goatee, a bit Mephistophelian: the typical face of the bad guy. Then, there were a couple of them who were real wardrobes with three doors and they soared on the group like baobab in a forest of bonsai.

A damn herd of big monkeys.

And they all stank of troubles.

Seeing all that hodgepodge of hulks emerging from the shade, Tom had the thrill of the animal caught in a trap. For a brief moment he stayed straight, pale, cold and motionless, the desperate look and all the body tossed by an imperceptible tremor, vetting those sailors who were approaching, staring at him. Without the boy noticing it, his hands started climb very slowly the coat, with almost unnoticeable movements, as if those guys were a few steps from him and not on the other side of the lay-by and didn't want to alarm them; but it stopped immediately as soon as he glimpsed shining, among the dark pleats of their clothes, not much funny toys, very similar to his.

_Shit!_

Tom reckoned quickly: as much as he was starving for pulling out the cannons, Sawyer appraised that it wasn't a great idea, since he wouldn't have enough spare munitions if the things went beyond a joke. Better to keep the discussion on a.. manual plan. Besides, those biceps with the peak, the forbidding expressions and those definitely significant looks said a lot about what were going to happen.

The boy searched, for the last time, that damn man he had pursued till now, hoping that he confirmed his suspect or, better, jumped out so Tom could squared accounts with him, taking satisfaction with it (before ending up, very probably, in a hospital with all the bones broken) but nothing. Neither the spit of a shadow.

Nevertheless he didn't shrink. Even when he felted at a loss he never shrink.

He decide to cut it off.

He inspired deeply, as if he wanted gathering, together with the air, all the courage and the determination he could. He replaced panic with anger and met them halfway. Tom had still the heart apart at that moment: surely they'd chosen an appalling moment for quarrelling with him.

In the meantime the covey stopped at close range from Sawyer, making a little semicircle, and someone had broken away from it, probably their ringleader. He was a robust man, with broad and grand shoulders. His eyes, very small, could hardly be made out, in the shade of the peak of the hat, while two moustaches cascaded to the chin and framed his face in an expression which, if the contest would have been a little bit different, had been also gracious.

"Did you get lost, boy?" asked sarcastically the character.

The young man didn't answer soon. He waited some seconds, while he looked him up and down with disdainful look. Then he changed his expression, to adapt it to his interlocutor's gaze: the typical look of a cat who'd just founded a new mouse to play with.

"Actually, I was looking just for you."

"Reason?"

"Information" answered calm the lad, while, with impeccable, perfectly imitated, air of nonchalance, he was glancing through everyone of those cheerful fine fellows and through the background at their back, studying mentally the battleground and the relatives forces in the field, before the breaking of the storm.

And, without even waiting the answer of the other one, he asked: "Where's your friend?"

On the face of the man appeared a strange expression, a mixture of a mock stupor and the amused, as if Sawyer had just made an idiotic question.

"What friend?"

The boy didn't appreciate the thought. His expression turned suddenly hard and dark and his eyes became to two very thin slits, while, from the deep green that dyed them, they sent flames and thunders.

"We get off to a bad start."

It happened all in a split second and before the small man could even registered the movement it arrived in the middle of his face the Tom's lightning straight right which came to hit the left cheekbone, missing the eye by just a finger. The boy's reaction had been so unexpected – and so violent – that the character flew to the ground at the first blow.

It was the spark that made burst the fire.

Immediately everyone ran amok but the boy jumped like a hare on the boxes at his back, moving beyond the reach of that barbaric wave. He used that kind of platform to avoid the blockade and began bringing them along through the port, so as Tom could space out those guys each other and "cook" them a few at any one time. Like Orazi and Curiazi.

When the agent thought it could be enough, he stopped to face up to the first two customers: the first one, a quite young character, of about thirty, strawberry blonde hair, a scarcely showed stubble, and a with sailor jacket; while the second one was a big and burly bad lot, with a black and chunky beard which covered like a duvet an enormous bull-neck and two little eyes mounted behind very fine slit and buried under one metre thick eyebrows.

Tom missed the first man's straight blow by whisker, to whom he served right away an upper-cut in the stomach, accompanied by a formidable left hook at his lower jaw, which send him to smash, with his soft weight, some boxes put down near a wall. But his mate was already standing too close to the young man and, when the boy turned to face him, he saw too late the man's punch in collision course with his chin. Under the impact of that thump, the boy rolled by some steps backwards, but his legs managed to carry him. To take had never been Tom's forte and all the times he'd caught it, he get pissed off immediately like mad, like a child who had seen another one breaking his favourite toy, and even if the received pasting had caused him some little pain, the boy mounted at once his counteroffensive, obviously increased in power.

So, even before the other man could give change, it blasted off the lightning reply of the young man: two straight punches, shot with frightful speed, went to find – and to hit – just the most fragile point of the face, a little on that ugly pirate beard.

Blackbeard gave a fine example of how can swearing a man when he's just got a shovelful on his mug. Roaring his rage and his pain like a wounded wild beast, the man moved out of range, covering the centre of his face with both hands. That damned snotnose had broken his nose! Filthy bastard! He was young but, holy cow, he fired strong punches like kicks of a mule!

In the meantime, Tom was defending himself well. He ran and fought, fought and ran. To a character who had charged with a nice sock of national exposition the boy fended it off a mid-air (not without seeing stars) and delivered a punch at his neck. The young man was on the point of giving him change but, with the tail of the eye, he noticed another nice tough guy in home stretch. So, broking away, for the moment, from his 'big friend', Sawyer kicked laterally, with a whip movement, the newcomer's chest, sending him a bit further, giving time, in this way, to Tom to finish dealing with his previous customer. With the left arm the boy drew away another mangonel which was about to rain down on him, and, coming closer, shot with the right arm a violent push with the elbow in the abdomen.

But right away the other man grabbed him from behind, blocking the neck with the forearm and closing the grip with his left hand. Turning on himself, the boy loaded all his strengths and his weight on the adversary's elbow. In this way Tom loosened temporally the man's grasp, enough to free his right arm and, wrapping him under the armpit and controlling his right foot, he managed to knock him down.

Sawyer turned his head to see at what point the other starters were, when a sock of ½ ton plunged on him and hit him full in face, sending him, with a half spin, to breath the dust. It was Wardrobe 2, come to his fellows' aid (a bit late!).

Half muzzy, with the floor spinning, the image wobbling on the desktop and the audio coming and going, Tom founded himself lying on the ground. Wardrobe 2 was going to kick him but the boy was more agile than him and, speedy like a curse, he caught in time the foot with both hands and revolved brutally it, making him crashing to the floor with a dull thud. Another couple of crooks stepped forward but our hero, fresh of anger from the drubbing just received, welcomed them with more warmth than before.

But, attending to almost four simpletons at the same time was a record which was costing him too much. Tom was always on the move, quickly like a rotten man, to manage to take care of one or two gorillas at any one time. When he happened to have three of them, the issue became more problematic and, no matter how many skills and good reflexes he had, he ended up almost always to get a smack, shot by the excessive element. It took a short time to fix the little bully-boy; Tom threw him off with nothing. But, as much as it concerned the others, it was another matter and it took more than a brush to make them losing a bit of their initial exuberance!

Unfortunately, his biggest warp, the rage, proved dangerous very soon. Sawyer was already drunk with anger and went on like a machine. He stopped himself too often to face his adversaries, ending up in having always lots of them against him. Furthermore, more pain he felt when he took a punch, more fury he put in his replies. He always had problems with the rage. It didn't let him see the danger, inspired exaggerated self-confidence. It ruined mind and heart more than the strain and the struggle did with his body. At every blow scored by the bad guys, beyond listening to the little birds singing, Tom lost the control. He didn't reason anymore, forgot completely all his repertoire of moves that they taught at the course and tried out some new ones, there, at the moment, inventing entirely. He wanted actions that did more and more harm, prevented those guys to pick theirselves up for a couple of hours at least. He wanted them to commence having enough and beginning to spill the beans.

But the same feeling started spreading among the other bystanders and not very nice ideas began quite soon to rain in more than one brain.

The boy hadn't finished panting for breath yet, when a new opponent, this time armed with more convincing 'arguments' (a knife), appeared before him. Sawyer waited him and when the man rushed at him, he acted promptly, almost without realizing it, with icy steadiness and ruthless precision: moving his body from the trajectory of the knife bound for his tummy, with his right arm Tom drew away the armed arm of the other guy, while, at the same time, he shot with the other hand a slash at the throat. Then, he lifted up with his right hand the arm which was still clutching the weapon and with his left hand, with a cutting movement, he hit the armed elbow joint of the adversary, making, in this way, the forearm spring uprightly. With the dynamic impulse given to the armed arm with the "scissor" and keeping his left hand on the elbow of the character, Sawyer took the control of the cold steel, grabbing with his right hand the armed one of the bad guy and leading it toward the zone of the head. Everything had been so swift that the men didn't notice even: a moment before he was charging the boy and, in the next instant, he founded himself with his own skewer planted in the shoulder.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Blackbeard, who had been "sent to lie down", in the meantime, by dint of kicks against the frontage of a warehouse, together with the Lil Bully (who was sleeping beside him in that moment), already pissed like a beast for the "comb" he'd received from Sawyer and for his hurt pride, seeing that not even with knives they managed to calm down that devil of a boy, was caught by a fit homicidal mania and pulled his gun.

_Go to Hell!_

But at the last minute, just in the right moment where his finger pulled the trigger, an arm moved brusquely the pistol by just a fistful of degrees, making it change the target. It was Little Bully-boy who had returned from the dreamland with exceptional timing.

"Noooo! The chief wants him alive!"

Too late to avoid a victim. Too soon to hit the right one.

The sudden intromission of the punk, the involuntary push that his arm received and that unsuspected cry (not counting those industrial doses of adrenalin that his anger had liberated in his system) gave the "kick-off" to that action which was waiting on that gun and the gun fired off a shot… which went to hit the guy (that one with the shinning skinhead) with whom Tom was staying on.

The slug stove in the body of the man, who shook under the impact as if he'd received a 200 volt shock. It broke the penultimate rib as if it was a bread-stick, missing the backbone by just a fistful of centimetres. It pierced the delicate pulmonary complexes as if they were balloons. It savaged bronchus and disintegrated alveolus, tore blood vessels and excavated in living tissues like a ground auger. It erupted from the chest with a little explosion of venous blood. On its outgoing trajectory it founded the left forearm of the boy: it brushed slightly his humerus, chipping it, and cut a few muscular fascicles of the biceps, along with capillaries and connective tissue.

Billiard-ball made just one step, then collapsed on his knees and slumped to the ground, with his eyes open wide by the surprise, shaken by the last spasms of the death. The funk of that stick end (avoided for an unashamed stoke of luck) and the panic behind that sentence caused a reflex arc in the boy and, even before Blackbeard could register the action, a Colt materialized in Sawyer's hand... an instant before it vomited fire, erasing his face by revolver shots and squashing half cerebral material on the wall of the building.

Tom discharged practically all his weapon at him and when the musical execution ended, everything that were human in that face had become a grotesque and monstrous composition, "animated" by the slow run of the blood leaking from six horrible organic craters.

It passed a terrible moment where it seems the time had stopped, freezing everybody in unnatural poses, almost ghastly. Tom, still shaken by the just-close death and disoriented by that news, looked like he didn't even breathe. He fixed like a drug addict his new modern sculpture, a bit unbalanced forward, like someone who was going to faint or vomit. The other participants were just as statue, petrified and silent. Tom's "saviour" had become fearsome. He didn't speak anymore, didn't breathe anymore. His mouth was left open in a mute scream of horror, the eyes open wide until the impossible. All the 400 facial muscles were tensed by terror, creating a labyrinth oh shadows on his face, finding their way through the deep lines of the fright. He was totally hypnotized by his own fear and he didn't manage to wrench his eyes away from that bleeding cluster of mince and crumbled bones where nose, eyes and mouth of his fellow had been brutally mixed.

Then the moment passed and everybody woke up.

The brutal elimination of their friend gave the go-ahead for a sudden cascade of signal and all the bad guys, getting the new status quo, set their hands to the artillery and within a few seconds it happened to the boy such a deluge of lead that it was a miracle that they didn't reduce him into a Gruyere. Tom sprang like a lightning and leapt behind the cases, immediately followed by a fanning of lovely 45' calibre sugar-almond, which leaving a very path of holes. Once he was under cover, Sawyer picked himself up, all aches and pains, on the left elbow – while the other arm was practically paralyzed with pain – and dragged himself with difficulty to be with the back against the boxes, while the tops of his new "redoubt" were having been literally sweep by that fury of bullets in a hellish rain of dust and splinters.

"_Great! Luckily they wanted me alive!"_

But the concert went on, more of anger than anything else, judging from the considerable and irrational waste of lead and from the very rough aim. Tom let them unburden theirselves, while he pulled out his gun, still loaded, which he kept in the right shoulder-holster. He didn't want to even look at his wound. He already knew it was horrible. He sniffed it from the strong smell of blood which came much probably from a pool in the making beside him; he felt it on his skin from that annoying sensation of cold and sticky wet, which sleeve was soaked with; he heard it in his fleshes, which were crying out with pain like the siren of the fire brigade.

Tom checked the bullets of his revolver. Only six. They wouldn't be enough for killing all those fine fellows, but they would be more than sufficient for getting a couple of companions for the Hell.

But just when Sawyer was about to try a foray, he heard – or, better, he wined indistinctly – through all that deafening racket, the unmistakable trumpeting of Moustache, the gang leader, who barked orders to his men (a sort of "stop shooting, idiots!") and within a few seconds the serenade ceased.

"Hey kid! Do you hear me?" shouted the man from the other side of the barricade.

"I hear you, tough guy." Replied the boy, leaning out a bit from his position "What's the matter? Have you decided to give up?"

"Don't make me laugh! Listen, you're hurt and surrounded. So, stop acting the hard man and come out! It's not worth keeping shooting against ourselves. We don't wanna hurt you!"

_Hà! He's even playing the fool! _

"Drop the gun!" Last offer.

"Come and take it!"

And, as a reply, a series of 'buckshot-size' curses arrived in rapid succession, making him suddenly back away and leaning more against the boxes. End of the peace negotiations.

_Damn you!_

But the firepower seemed more diminished than before, although it went on non-stop, as if the number of the shots had been reduced to 3 or 4 individuals. So… what the hell were the others doing?

The secret agent smelled immediately a rat. All that 'economy' of load gave him a bad feeling of being a roofing fire and the fact that some participants had (apparently) absented theirselves from the game didn't augur well. They were going to take him and he would have them on him at any time. There wasn't a minute to lose!

The boy looked around. The big men had practically him on toast and they're keeping him stuck in that hole, which, as much as it protected him from a bad 'cold' of lead, it prevented him from an easy escape. Tom run his eyes ahead him. The only free way, not 'travelled' by the '45, was an exiguous space of a few metres, beyond which the glossy black of the sea devoured the borders of the night, fusing with it. The kid seemed thinking a moment. Then he had a deep sigh and, with a last effort, he threw himself in the water, disappearing in that abyss.

PS: I must admit that I've completely invented the town planning of New Orleans ^^"


End file.
